Weight Gaining Ideas

Unfortunately some patients find it difficult to gain weight. This may be due to medication side effects, a naturally low appetite, failure to feel hunger cues, picky eating, illness, or other causes. 

Here are some weight gaining ideas that may be helpful. If these are not successful we often employ visits with a dietician, or consider medications that can increase appetite. Here is a post on one such medication: https://www.phillyintegrative.com/post/cyproheptadine

If they have certain foods they really enjoy, like pizza, mac & cheese, or chicken fingers, then don’t be afraid to do more of those. While we want to avoid super sugary foods like candy bars, we don’t want to avoid fatty foods. This can seem counter intuitive as adults who are programmed to try to eat more lean foods. 

One of the keys to gaining weight for finicky eaters is sneaking in calorie dense foods like fats. The easiest way to do this is by using oils, such as olive oil, coconut oil, or butter, on everything you prepare for them. This works especially well on breads, pasta, and other starches, as well as on meats and vegetables. 

If you can sneak on 2 tablespoons of oil onto morning toast or pancakes, or on dinner pasta, that adds over 240 calories alone! For someone who likes a bagel and cream cheese, put some coconut oil on the bagel and then lather on the cream cheese on top of that! 

If the patient is amenable to consuming milk of any kind (dairy, oat, almond, coconut, pea protein), find the one with the highest fat and calorie content. There are huge variations out there and we want to avoid the lower calorie options. 

Another helpful approach is to eat as big of a dinner as possible and then, 2-3 hours later, consume a high calorie snack just before bedtime. Some good examples of this are blended smoothies that have peanut or almond butter, whole fat milk (options of dairy/coconut/oat/almond), and ice cream (get the highest calorie ice cream!). 

Here is a great option for a calorie rich snack between meals, or to make sure something is eaten during lunch, which is often skipped by those on stimulants for ADHD: 

• Super Fat snack packs: https://www.superfat.com/
  

This company has options that don't contain nuts: 

• https://lutrish.com/shop/
  

Here are some other high calorie options from Amazon: 

• ScandiShake (this is the one you mix with milk = 600 calories): 
• https://www.amazon.com/Scandishake-Vanilla-Case-of-36/dp/B00AMLKZDE
• Benecalorie (this is the oil one you can mix into smoothies)
• Duocal (the powder that you can add to sauces, mac & cheese etc)
  

Lastly and most importantly, we don’t want to turn eating into something they dread, which can sometimes happen when parents turn into eating police. Try to tie eating these additional snacks with something positive. 

Remind your child that they are eating more so they can grow to their tallest height. Also remind them that they can also gain more muscle & strength this way, if that’s something they care about.